


Winterfell Tales

by Vaznetti



Category: Game of Thrones (TV), Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Game of Thrones spoilers, crossovering treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 22:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12351843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaznetti/pseuds/Vaznetti
Summary: It's like something out of an old story, Miles thinks: a Betan's idea of what Barrayar was like.





	Winterfell Tales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MiraMira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraMira/gifts).



> A very last minute treat! I apologise for any mistakes.

1.

Miles opened his eyes to a stone ceiling in a room he didn't recognize. Where was he, someone's decrepit mansion in Vorbarr Sultana? No, that couldn't be it. He had been with Ekaterin, on the transport from Komarr to Sergyar; the ship had changed course, under his direction, to examine a fluctuation in... He sat up abruptly, ignoring the way his vision dimmed as he did it, and his head buzzed. Where was Ekaterin? Where were they? He had a bandage on his leg, a cloth one. Some of the blankets under his hands were made of some kind of rough heavy cloth; the rest were fur, thick and soft and heavy. The bed and table were wood, there was a clay pitcher on the table and a clay cup next to it. He lifted the cup and sniffed. Clear liquid, probably water, but he put it down anyway despite his dry mouth.

It's like something from a holovid set during the Times of Isolation, he thought. A really, really high quality holovid. Now that his head was feeling clearer he tried pushing himself to his feet: the wounded leg hurt but it supported his weight well enough for him to limp to the window: the floor was warm but the air coming in made him shiver. He had to stand on his tiptoes to look out, and even then all he could see was gray sky and the top of an ancient stone tower. Where was Ekatierin, he thought again. Where were they? It was as cold as Camp Permafrost, he thought, but everything too old for that. Too old, too... primitive. Too much wood. Like a Betan's idea of what Barrayar was like.

"Miles! What are you doing out of bed?" He turned so quickly that his head felt light again. The sight of Ekaterin lessened his urge to panic by at least a third, but his misguided attempt to leave the wall and rush to her left him staggering. She caught him in time, Roic just behind her to support Miles' other side, and he smiled up at her, although it wasn't just the relief which was making him lightheaded. "You lost so much blood," she said. "You need to lie down."

"I'm fine," Miles lied automatically. There was a girl standing in the doorway: tall, bright red hair, a pale oval face above a black cloak over a long black dress. Ekaterin was wearing a new dress as well, he realised. Long, brown wool, with silver embroidery. Very Vor. Very Vorkosigan. An interesting message.

Ekaterin turned back to the girl. "Lady Stark," she said, "May I present my husband, Lord Auditor Miles Vorkosigan?" 

Miles managed a slight bow, and hoped it was enough for the girl: it might have been more impressive if he'd been wearing more than his undershirt, drawers, and a large bandage. "My Lady."

"You are welcome to take refuge in Winterfell, Lord Vorkosigan," the girl said. Her accent was strange and stilted but the words were clear enough.

"Thank you for your kindness, Lady Stark," Ekaterin said,"but I must insist that my husband lies back down immediately."

"Of course." The girl inclined her head. She couldn't be out of her teens, Miles thought. "I will tell Sam that you're awake; he'll want to check your wound. Excuse me, Lady Vorkosigan." She nodded again and was gone in a swirl of heavy black wool.

"Ekaterin, what..." 

"Come to bed," she hissed at him. "You were injured in the crash, I thought you were going to bleed to death. It's a miracle we landed near anyone! You should see how... how wild this place is. Forests as far as the eye can see, forests and snow. It's..."

"It's an entirely new planet," Miles said slowly as he lay back down. "A lost colony." He sat up again, abruptly, ignoring the way the world started to go black around the edges. "The ship! Did the distress beacon go off? We need to incapacitate it -- I need time, to figure out what is going on here, to manage the contact. We don't want just anyone turning up."

"Miles, the ship crashed here. If the beacon wasn't destroyed, it's been on for a day already. And..." She paused. "There's something odd here. Everything seems so... old, I think."

"It just seems that way because it's all handmade. I'll need to go inspect what's left of the ship in any case, so that we can arrange a rescue. A new planet!" He said again. "Maybe we can name it for you!"

"I think the people who already live here will have an opinion about that," Ekaterin said dryly. 

"I'm sure we can work something out," Miles said. A thought struck him. "Roic! You can go, and check the beacon."

'Roic is about to go down to the kitchens to bring you something to eat," Ekaterin said firmly.

"If you're certain, my lady," Roic began.

"I will be fine here."

Miles struggled to sit back up. "What happened? Are you in danger?"

"Nothing happened," Ekaterin said. "Someone was rude to me, once. It won't happen again." She shifted her dress, and he saw the needler hanging in an improvised holster from her belt.

"I took care of him, my lord," Roic said. "I took him to Lady Arya when I was done, and told her what I did."

"Lady Stark's sister," Ekaterin explained.

"They said she'd understand. They said she killed one of her sister's own lords, right in the middle of the Hall, for threatening them. They said that Lady Sansa gave the order, and she slit his throat, right there in the Hall, cool as anything. You can still see the bloodstain on the stone."

"Is this true?" Miles asked Ekaterin. 

Ekaterin paused. "Yes," she finally said. "He was accused of plotting against her and her family, although he had helped her take the castle back from her husband."

"This is starting to sound like one of those daytime dramas Ivan used to claim he didn't watch. What happened to the husband?"

"They say she fed him to his own hunting dogs."

"The people here are loyal to the Starks," Roic said. "Not just the lords, but everyone, the women in the kitchens, the stableboys, the armsmen. It's like stories from the old days, at home."

"It still is the old days here," Miles said. "Grandfather Piotr would have loved it."

 

2.

Roic brought him the beacon the next day, or what was left of it. Miles was encouraged to stay inside; a good look at the drifts of snow, nearly as tall as he was, made him willing to accept the fat doctor Tarly's advice. He took the remnants of the beacon to the solar, where the light was good enough even through the constantly falling snow. He found Lady Stark already there, bent over her ledgers. "Am I disturbing you?" he asked.

"No," she said. "I can't make these add up, in any case. We have too many people, and not enough food. The Boltons..." She trailed off. "And there is a limit to what I can demand, when people are fleeing the White Walkers." The worry in her face made her look young, as young as she really was, Miles reminded himself, and much more vulnerable than the girl in the stories he's been hearing. It wasn't just the husband fed to his dogs: the knights from the Vale, which Miles gathered was a different part of the continent, said that she had been married as a child to an evil dwarf (another Old Vor folktale, he thought), and had killed the king at his own wedding. He found it all hard to believe, other than the evil dwarf part, which explained some of the looks he had been getting.

"Can I help? I am a Count's heir: book keeping is at least traditionally part of the job."

She frowned. "Unless you have an army, and the supplies for it, I'm not sure you can."

"If I can make this thing work, I can do that," Miles said.

"Really?" she asked. "Are your lands so rich?"

Miles smiled. "No, the Vorkosigan district is part poisonous wasteland, part inhospitable mountains. Most of our people are simply too stubborn to move, and the place is only useful when you need somewhere to hide from an invasion. But we could put you up in front of the Council of Counts, though: the moderates will do what Gregor asks, and the old guard won't be able to resist you."

She didn't smile at the flattery. "Gregor is your emperor," she said. "Why would he help us? What would he want in return?"

A planet, Miles thought, already terraformed, already full of life, and possibly accessible only from Sergyar. It was an unimaginable resource. "He'll do it if I ask him," Miles said.

"And your 'old guard'?" she asked.

"Ah," Miles said. "That's a long story, and my lady mother could explain it better than I could. Let's just say, you would remind them of who they want to think they are."

"And what is that?"

"Chivalrous," Miles said, and at her blank expression, "Knightly, might be the best word for it." Although the Council of Counts bore little resemblance to the hall full of bearded and armored men who towered over Miles, but listened silently to Lady Stark, when she told them that her brother had seen the Wall breached in a vision. They would have vowed her their swords in a moment -- hell, Miles would have done the same if he hadn't already been sworn to Gregor -- but she had reminded them at the end that her brother would return soon to save them all. He certainly hoped so, because he did not have much faith in his own ability to repair the beacon. 

"I used to believe in knights and ladies," she said. "Then I grew up."

"Winterfell is full of knights, Lady Stark," he said.

"Winterfell is full of terrified men who have nowhere else to go," she said. "And if Jon doesn't get back quickly, and if he doesn't bring help from the Queen, I think we will be lost. Bran says--" She stopped herself abruptly.

"I've heard what Lord Bran says." Miles wasn't sure that he believed any of it, but he had certainly heard it, the Night's King, the army of reanimated corpses. The dragon. He had to admit that he would like to see a dragon, but he would also like to survive the experience. He sighed and started to unscrew the casing around the beacon.

 

3.

There really were dragons, much to Miles' surprise: he had secretly been expecting something less biological. He witnessed a series of touching reunions, and got his first look at the queen they had all been wondering about: another young girl, who looked like something out of a Cetegandan laboratory. He wondered grimly whether all the rulers on this planet were teenagers; maybe they killed them some time in their mid-twenties. Killed them and ate them, probably. No, he thought, that was the cold and the snow getting to him. 

At the feast, he and Ekaterin made it to the top table, which he suspected was more down to Ekaterin's self-appointed position as Lady Stark's chief lady in waiting. She was interestingly closed-mouthed about what went on during the time the two of them spent together; at the end of the feast she gave him a quick kiss and disappeared with Lady Stark and the young queen. He had a moment of panic that if they didn't get out of here soon she would turn into some kind of local Lady Alys.

"That wine is terrible," a voice said next to him, and a small man settled into the chair Ekaterin had just left. "Here." He emptied her goblet onto the floor and filled it with something from a skin he was carrying. It was the dwarf, Tyrion Lannister, the young queen's minister; Miles had noted him earlier on, and been perversely pleased to find someone on this planet smaller than he. He introduced himself, and added, "And you are Lady Ekaterin's husband. I know the names and family histories of every other lord in this room. You are something of a mystery. But Sansa thinks you might be worth talking to."

"She does?" 

"And therefore," Tyrion Lannister lifted his glass, drank deeply, and refilled it, "here I am, to talk."

Miles bought time by drinking his own; it was better than whatever they'd been serving. "Lord Lannister..." He started.

"Tyrion. Lord Lannister was my father and... well, the less said the better. Besides, we dwarfs should stick together."

Miles swallowed the explanation that he wasn't a mutant, although he thought that Tyrion guessed what he was going to say. "Miles," he offered in return.

Tyrion turned to look out at the room full of men, along with a few women. "Sansa thinks that you mean it when you say you can bring an army down to help us out of the sky. It sounds unlikely to me."

"It's true," Miles said. He had found a way to turn the beacon on, so if anyone followed them through the wormhole -- and they would, when he didn't report back -- would find Miles and Ekaterin immediately. "Daring rescues are my specialty."

"Really?" Tyrion asked. "From the sky?"

The wine was warming Miles. "Let's go outside."

"Are you serious?" Tyrion asked. "Have you seen what's outside out there? The snow drifts are--"

"Taller than you or I. I know. Come on."

Outside in the courtyard it began to occur to Miles that this was not the best idea. "We'll go back in soon. But look up at the stars."

"I've seen them before," Tyrion said.

"But do you know what they are? Each one is a sun, so far away that it may take the light centuries to reach us. Many of them have planets around them, places just like this one. Well, many of them are warmer. And you can't breathe the air on some of them. But there are ways to travel between them, and that's how I got here. Whole worlds full of people, just like you and me."

"Just like you and me?" Tyrion asked.

"Most of them are taller," Miles admitted. Should he mention gene-cleaning? Maybe not, although he wondered whether Ekaterin's heart-to-hearts with Lady Stark had included discussion of uterine replicators. "But they will help you."

"In exchange for something, no doubt."

Miles shrugged. "Would you rather be dead, or indebted?"

Tyrion's mouth twisted. "I'd rather be indoors and warm. You can tell me about the stars there, and why you're so convinced your people will be able to help us against this army of dead people."

"Are they really dead?" Miles asked.

Tyrion shuddered, and not, Miles guessed, from the cold. "Oh yes. I've seen one. They killed one of Daenerys' dragons. That worries me: I thought they at least would be safe. What is your emperor going to want from us? Submission? She won't like that."

"Let's go back inside," Miles said. "We can work it out over some more of your wine, if there is any. I'll tell you about how they make deals in Jackson's Whole, and you can tell me what your queen will and won't accept. It's a wonderful universe, but you don't want to be alone in it." He stopped to look up at the sky, and thought suddenly that there was an extra star up there in the darkness. And another, and another.

The beacon had worked.


End file.
